It's another critical failing by the people at Stack Exchange. Further to this, it's better to ask a history of mathematics question at the 'Mathematics' forum than it is at the 'History of Science and Mathematics' forum. Why? Because more people are there to answer. Also, if you word the question correctly, no-one would even think it was in the wrong place.

At some point I'll collect my best tips for dealing with Stack Overflow etcetera.

I can give no opinion about Stack Overflow because I have never found reason to ask a question there. I know a very talented programmer who, when stuck "lives in Stack Overflow" for a while. I found his account on the forum, and he only ever asked 1 or 2 questions (and answered many more). Other than that, I am not qualified to speak.

By my last comment (hastily composed) I meant that I am impressed by SuperUser will find it helpful. Especially because its active, and it's general, not like tenforums.com, answers.microsoft.com, etc. And many expert contributers.

SuperUser is great and everyone is friendly usually, well compared to SO anyway hahaYeah so many forums/sites. If your posts doesn't belong on SuperUser They will gently move it or answer it anyways. where as on SO, they down vote you or close/delete the question :/I've seen it happen so many times to new users...

nnnik, in this thread, and guest3456, elsewhere, mentioned a forum/FAQ distinction. I couldn't find any information about a distinction anywhere, other than this link, which suggests an FAQ is still a forum, but where the questions face tougher hurdles.